RIO DE JANEIRO, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Brazil’s inflation rate will reach 5.4 percent by the end of the year, according to the country’s Central Bank’s quarterly inflation report released on Wednesday.
The figures show a slight increase from the previous quarterly report, when the Central Bank foresaw an inflation rate of 5.2 percent. In 2011, the Bank expects an inflation rate of five percent, up from 4.9 percent in the previous report.
The projections take into consideration a Brazilian Real-U.S. dollar exchange rate of 1.80 reais a dollar and an annual basic interest rate of 10.25 percent. Both estimates are above the inflation target set by the Brazilian government for 2010 and 2011, which is of 4.5 percent with a tolerance of two percentage points, which means that the inflation rate should not exceed 6.5 percent.
According to the report, there is a 12 percent chance the inflation rate will surpass 6.5 percent in 2010. In 2011, there is a 17 percent possibility.
Last year, Brazil registered an inflation rate of 4.31 percent. In the first five months of 2010, the country accumulated an inflation rate of 3.09 percent, up from 2.2 percent in the same period in 2009.
The Central Bank’s report also foresaw a GDP growth of 7.3 percent this year, which, if confirmed, would be the highest since 1986. The estimates for the unemployment rate were of seven percent; if confirmed, the rate would be the lowest since 2002. |
